"Rod" wrote in message
...
Any experience of growing them outdoors? Gotta nice south facing wall
where it
might be worth a try.

Hi Rod,

I live in Japan so this post may be off-topic, but there's a quite big
loquat tree next to my house, in a relatively cold spot near an east-facing
wall, and it survives the winters here (the minimum temperature in my part
of eastern Japan is about -4 C) very nicely. In winter the loquat tree gets
covered with snow for days at a time but this doesn't seem to damage the
leaves at all. Other people I know have loquat trees in more sheltered spots
than I do, and the tree seems to bear fruit a few weeks earlier for them
than me.

(About my climate, I should say that where I live it's possible to grow
tangerine trees outside in sheltered spots.)

The tree itself is very attractive, and the fruit is a beautiful colour. The
fruit is self-thinning and the tree is very robust against disease and does
not need pruning, so it's a very low maintenance tree. The fruit of the
loquat tree is very tasty. Peeling the fruit is a nuisance, however. You end
up with sore fingernails, because the thin yellow rind gets right under
them. My family are actually too lazy to peel the fruit so I usually end up
peeling and eating most of it. Also, the birds like it and the tree gets
attacked a lot. They usually get the top half of the fruit which I'm a bit
lazy about picking. Last year there was a big crop and a lot of seeds
dropped from the tree where the fruit had been attacked by birds, and there
are now dozens of baby trees growing around the parent.

In Japan the leaves of the loquat tree are also used to make tea. I haven't
tried making it myself but it's supposed to be healthy or something. Another
piece of loquat trivia which I've heard is that there is a Japanese
superstition that if you plant a loquat tree it brings you some kind of bad
luck.